His voice, even now, follows me everywhere on this longest of rides, this thing called life.

I love you, Katie. You might not be ready to say those words now, and maybe you'll never be able to say them, but that doesn't change how I feel about you.

Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable, but her story and mine are different now. It wasn't easy for me to accept this simple truth, because there was a time when our stories were the same, but that was six years and two lifetimes ago.

I have always had an interest in how cultural rituals play into something as unpredictable as romance.

Real people had real agendas, real demands, real expectations about how other people should behave.

The saddest people I've met in my life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all .

Admittedly, there was a lot she still didn't know about him, but she did know this: He completed her in a way that she'd never thought possible. Knowledge isn't everything, she told herself, and she knew then that, in Nana's words, he was the toast to her butter.